Salem to Sumatra: A City Planner Exchange

February 15, 2018

By Bryan Colbourne, AICP

Many non-planners are surprised to learn how interesting planning really is. Planning shapes the vibrancy of the places we live in. I love the work I do. I especially enjoy the sheer variety of interesting projects I’ve had the chance to work on during my twelve years as an urban planner for the City of Salem. This year I had an opportunity to participate in a “planner exchange” with a very talented international planner, Ria Oktorina, from the Indonesian province of West Sumatra.

Ria worked with me at Salem City Hall for several weeks and then I had the chance to spend ten days working with her in West Sumatra. What a fascinating place! I visited a tea plantation at the foot of an active volcano, hiked through the sweltering jungle highlands to inspect a test site for growing tropical wheat, and climbed through World War Two-era Japanese tunnels running under a surreal Dutch colonial city where the locals play on smartphones in horse-drawn carts. The best part of the trip was meeting professional planners from a different culture, in another corner of the world who are doing the same work I do.

The planner exchange was part of the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI) Professional Fellows Program. This program is funded by the US Department of State. It brings emerging leaders to the United States for intensive fellowships designed to broaden their professional expertise and strengthen ties between the United States and Southeast Asia.

While working in the U.S., fellows propose a project to be implemented in their home country, based on the ideas and experiences they’ve gained in America. If the fellow’s project is selected for funding, then the American host workplace can send one of their employees to travel to the fellow’s home country to help implement the project in a true “professional exchange.” I’m fortunate that Ria’s proposal to create a plan for tourism in the Kembar Lake area of West Sumatra was selected for funding, thereby giving me a chance to travel to Indonesia.

AN OREGON PLANNER ABROAD

I arrived in Padang dazed from twenty-six hours of flying. This gritty historic seaside city of about one million people is located in the middle of West Sumatra, not far from the equator. A nice day feels like relaxing in a sauna, except in this sauna you’re surrounded by people covered in many layers of colorful Indonesian clothing.

Ria and her network of colleagues prepared an amazing itinerary for me, starting with a welcome dinner of fresh fish and spicy “Rendang” beef the first evening, followed by non-stop events, and excellent food. I was also provided accommodation with a lovely host family for ten days. I didn’t want to miss a thing! After all, I could catch up on sleep later while on the plane ride home, right?

I quickly learned about something Indonesians call “selfie culture”. This describes Indonesian’s love of taking photos with friends. The photo taking part of a normal lunch out can take several minutes and is a beautiful thing to be a part of. “Selfie” is misleading because none of these are true solo selfies. In fact, the term selfie culture is not at all accurate for Indonesia, which is a country that social researcher Geert Hofstede scores very low for individualism and very high for collectivism, restraint, and harmony. And harmony is what’s needed to keep this incredibly diverse nation of 260 million people functioning well.

West Sumatra has a particularly interesting history within Indonesia. Prior to Muslim traders and Dutch colonists, the Minangkabau Kingdom controlled West Sumatra. At Pagaruyung Palace I learned about the matrilineal customs of the Minang people that continue even today, and how those customs have been maintained within West Sumatra’s modern Islamic society. The Minang people are the largest matrilineal society in the world, with property, family name, and land passing down from mother to daughter. Although men hold most of the important roles in politics and business.

The Kembar Lake area of the West Sumatran highlands is a pleasant rural area of coffee and tea plantations next to several lakes and volcanoes, with brightly colored mosques dispersed throughout jungle vegetation. A wild monkey may steal your fresh passionfruit if you leave it unattended at one of the many roadside produce stands and makeshift restaurants perched on cliff sides along the windy local roads. Sadly, only the most adventurous tourists ever make it to Kembar because the roads are rugged and there are few hotels. Ria’s YSEALI project is to create a plan for boosting the economy of this area through tourism. The finished Action Plan will include a list of well vetted specific recommendations to increase tourism.

DEVELOPING AN ACTION PLAN

Ria began her project by convening a stakeholder committee of local public officials, businesspeople, and academics. The committee met three times and produced a list of twenty ideas to improve tourism at Kembar Lake. The ideas ranged from large infrastructure items, such as building a better road to access the region, to lower cost items such as creating a homestay program to accommodate travelers in local residences. These action items would later be presented to the public at an open house held at a grange hall on location in the hills overlooking the lakes. The attending public had a chance to vote on their favorite action items at this event, using the sticky dot voting method that Ria saw planners using at an open house during her time in Salem. Amazingly, Ria arranged for the Governor of West Sumatra’s attendance at the open house. His participation assured wide publicity for the event.

On the day of the open house, the Governor, US Embassy Representative, and I were greeted with traditional dancing by some of the local young people. After several formal presentations and speeches, Ria guided the Governor through the dot voting exercise trailed by the press writing down their every word. The Governor was generous with his time, and we all very much appreciated his support for Ria’s project. I think he understood that the significance of the event, apart from seeking ways to promote tourism at Kembar Lake, was also to celebrate a new template for public outreach in planning projects in West Sumatra. I got the impression that the transparency and simplicity of the open house format and dot voting exercise is uncommon in planning projects in West Sumatra.

Initially, I was apprehensive about having such a formal agenda at the open house, fearing that all the pomp could make it uncomfortable for local residents to casually attend and share their real opinions. Perhaps this was true for some local people, but after observing the event and discussing the social dynamics with the locals, I realized that the formality and presence of the Governor at the event actually generated much interest in the open house that it probably wouldn’t have attracted otherwise, making it a net win for increasing public participation. I was even told by several people that they heard the Governor was going to attend, so they came to see what it was all about. I think Ria understood this aspect of Sumatran culture well and she skillfully planned an event that would attract local leaders, businesses, and residents. Ria is now working on summarizing the results of the voting exercise to distribute back to the stakeholders, as she works to complete the Action Plan.

PLANNING CHALLENGES IN WEST SUMATRA

After the open house we could all relax a bit. Hakim, a planner for the City of Padang, gave us an extensive tour of the City, and explained that his greatest challenge over the past decade has been adapting the City’s comprehensive planning policies after experiencing a devastating earthquake in 2009. Prior to the earthquake there wasn’t much in the policies about disaster resilience planning. Now earthquake, tsunami, and flood preparedness are the major theme to most development planning in the City.

The 2009 earthquake claimed hundreds of lives and destroyed large parts of the city. Tsunamis are also a major danger to the original parts of Padang that are mostly located in low lying areas next to the beach. Many government offices and public facilities such as hospitals have been moved out of the tsunami zone along a new ring road several miles inland. The problem is that these outlying areas are not only completely automobile-dependent, but they’re also vulnerable to flooding from surrounding creeks during the monsoon rains. Hakim talked about Padang’s two-pronged approach to tsunami evacuation:

1. Horizontal evacuation following newly established roads leading directly inland to the ring road area; and

1. Vertical evacuation using several new tall concrete buildings being constructed next to the beach, which can accommodate people on their upper floors. These new buildings are five to ten stories tall and serve a dual purpose as hotel or office building as well as tsunami shelter if needed.

On my final morning in Padang, Ria and her husband took me out for breakfast at a famous restaurant in central Padang. I felt so fortunate for the chance to meet so many wonderful and generous people during my trip. What an unbelievable experience.

If you’d like to get involved with the YSEALI Professional Fellows Program or similar programs, check out: https://exchanges.state.gov/us or http://professionalfellows.americancouncils.org. There’s always a need for more worksites and host families in the U.S. to host professional fellows like Ria. Fellows come from a variety of professions and are hosted in many different types of workplaces, not just planning offices! You may even get to participate in an exchange program.

Bryan Colbourne, AICP, is Senior Long Range Planner for the City of Salem, where he has worked for the past twelve years. He may be contacted at bcolbourne15@gmail.com